


Migraines

by deawrites



Category: Shutter Island (2010)
Genre: Adult Content, Explicit Language, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:38:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deawrites/pseuds/deawrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy Daniels hates migraines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Migraines

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short fic-let. I adore the book and loved the movie and the characters really spoke to me. 
> 
> All kudos, comments, questions, criticisms welcome! Thank you for reading.
> 
> If you find any errors please let me know. Cheers!

“Migraines….The Trick, Teddy had long since learned, was to stay busy and focused. They couldn’t catch you if you didn’t stop running.”

Dennis Lehane, **Shutter Island** 2003

 

 

They’re killers.

The headaches I mean. They’ll blast behind your eyes like a mortar shell exploding just in front of you. First your sight goes, then hearing. After that, if you dare take a breath, you feel every atom in your body severing and spinning off into the ether. Gravity can’t do shit against that, my friend. I’m no science whiz, but I know pain. I’ve inflicted enough in my time to know a thing or two about the human capacity of endurance. Stand still long enough and the headache’ll cleave you in two. Keep moving and it can’t get a toe hold. A migraine can be a metaphor for War: a moving target is harder to hit than a static one. Statistically speaking, a body in motion has to stop at some point. And then you’re dead. One minute you’re tracking a guy in Miltown, Illinois, and the next you’re on your knees vomiting yesterday’s dinner, in the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly. And God help you, you poor, bastard if you can’t tell if you’re lying down, standing up, sitting down, or dancing a jig. Truth is? At that moment, that pain has you by the short hairs and there’s nothing you can do but hang on for the ride.

Life is like that. Men try to shape it to their will, but in the in end, ain’t it Life that really shapes **_Us_**?”

Yeah, migraines’ll kill you every damned time.

 

_“You gotta another headache, Baby?” Dolores ran her fingers through his GI crew cut, her nails scratching gently over his scalp._

_If it didn’t hurt to breathe, Teddy would have moaned at the sensation. God but Dolores knew just how to touch him. She knew intuitively how to bring his lust to the boiling point in mere seconds. She brought out the carnal animal in Teddy. He loved her; Christ he loved her; but this was torture. His migraine was pounding relentlessly behind his eyes, across the top of his skull and pooled at the nape of his neck. His teeth ached with the intensity of it, and Teddy took his time in answering. Hell, blinking made him want to void the contents of his stomach, making mere words kettle drum beats pulsing in the atmosphere between them._

_“Yeah.”_

_Teddy was a poet when he wanted to be. He didn’t blame Dolores for frowning at him. Her soured expression reached her eyes and he saw them grow cold, the sympathy for his current state evaporating. He could hear the moisture shift in her mouth when her cheeks collapsed inwards, her tongue flicking the sharp point of one of her canines. Oh yeah, he was a mother-fucking-poet all right._

_“You gonna drink this one down too, Teddy? Get you a big, ol’bottle of rye whiskey and drown out your sorrows?” Her fingers clenched in his hair, pulling it a little bit away from the scalp._

_Teddy reached up with a hand and pushed hers downward to ease the tug upon his hair. His scalp was screaming at him, his migraine throbbing to the pulsing of his blood through his veins. He began to prize Dolores’ fingers off of his hair, she resisted and he knew he was probably hurting her. It was all he could do to keep from shoving her violently off of his lap, to sever her hold on his hair, even if it meant she was going to rip out a handful of the stuff. But he wouldn’t shove her away; no, never that. He felt guilt seize him at the thought of even inflicting a minute amount of pain to her fingers. She wouldn’t let go. When Dolores wanted to she could have the tenacity of lion with a kill. If you chase something down and catch it, by god you’re going to keep and eat every morsel of that carcass._

_“I’m not sad,” Teddy insisted, his teeth bearing down. “I hurt. There’s a difference Dolores.”_

_She snorted. Not the most seductive sound he had ever heard her make, as her expression twisted into something just as unattractive. “You’re a lush, and you know it. Any excuse to drink. Right, Baby?” The endearment sounded toxic exiting her sneering lips. Her lipstick was too red. She was fond of the shade, but it looked garish to Teddy just now. It made her thirty-one-year old features look harsh, far older than they should ever be. She laughed the sound patronizing and mirthless. Teddy managed to pull her fingers free of his hair, his large hands closing around her suddenly all too frail wrists. “You know what you’re trouble is, Teddy? The real reason why you get these headaches so bad?”_

_The pause was not granted for him to answer her. Teddy knew better than to interrupt her rhetorical diagnosis of short comings. Instead, Teddy loosened his grip upon her wrists, and stroked his thumbs up the center of her palms. The intimacy jarred Dolores for a second; he could see her eyes flash with curiosity, shame and more than a hint of loathing. She pursed her too red lips into a tight line and yanked her hands out of his grasp. Her gaze narrowed and he knew she was about to spat venom into his face. He would accept the strike, as he had learned to do when the battle wasn’t even worth fighting anymore._

_“You’re rotten. Poison to the core!” Dolores rose quickly from his lap, retreated as if he had physically threatened her and she had to place herself out of his radius of reach. “Poor Teddy. Poison to the core!” She shrieked the last words at him, and Teddy closed his eyes, pushing his head into his hands at the abrupt volume. He pressed his hands down upon his skull, attempting to keep the bone from fragmenting. He wanted to shout back at her, tell her to stop saying things like that and either give him sympathy or just leave the room. Yet Teddy remained silent except to emit a groan of anguish._

_For several seconds he didn’t move, afraid to even breathe, until slowly he felt the black curtain of pain abate somewhat. He took a tentative breath and then swallowed. Slowly Teddy opened his eyes and raised his head. Dolores was standing right in front of him, her feet bare, her toenails painted to match the color of her lips. Yet somehow the toe polish wasn’t garish at all. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and Teddy was awed that she was crying. A part deep down inside of him held out hope that the tears were for him and his pain._

_“Why, Baby?” Dolores pleaded barely above a whisper. “Why do you have to hurt so badly? What’s in your head that won’t let you be?”_

_Teddy wished to God he had an answer for her._


End file.
